


Willie Never Yelled

by Esmethewitch



Series: Kissing & Cooking [1]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment-Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Camping, Coming Out, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Feelings, M/M, Missing Scene, Relationship Discussions, Slice of Life, Supportive partner, Transitioning, Unconditional Love, references to English folk songs, trans!Jackrum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 02:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17890118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmethewitch/pseuds/Esmethewitch
Summary: A young Jack Jackrum has reunited with William and has a promising career in the army, but is unsure if William will still love him. After all, he's not the girl who got left behind anymore.





	Willie Never Yelled

Normally, Jackrum was nervous about scouting. He hated creeping on ahead like a spy, the separation from the rest of his squad, and the distinct possibility that he might not return. That wasn’t why he joined the army, in the beginning. It was to serve the Duchess with his fellow patriots (well, really only one fellow patriot in particular), marching shoulder-to-shoulder to protect the Motherland from the horde of foes that everyone insisted assailed her on all sides.  
  
Today, he was uneasy for a different reason. William was with him this time, so the loneliness was not a problem. Jackrum knew this area well and didn’t expect to find anything more menacing than a particularly tall tree that cast strange shadows or a big boulder that might be a sleeping troll. No, he was as terrified as he was the day he promised Jeffy Higgins a roll in the hay in the main barn, kneed the poor boy in the...socks, knocked him out, and sprinted away wearing his would-be suitor’s clothes, never to return. He ( _she_ back then) justified her actions with the fact that Jeffy had once pinched her substantial bottom without asking permission. When he knew full well that she was William’s, and William was hers, and that her lover’s Army conscription changed nothing for her. Whether William would still be _his_ if he knew the truth today was a new question. It had to be asked, but he was scared to know. There was a conversation they needed to have for a long time, but didn’t, due to the many listening ears in the barracks.  
  
They marched through the sweet pine forests, the brown carpet of needles muffling their footfalls. It started to rain, and Willie’s lovely golden hair hung like a soaked mop around his face.  
  
“If the Z-zlobenians have any sense, they’re staying inside today,” he said. “What do you say we set up the tent?” He always stuttered a bit if he was the first one to say anything after a long silence. Most people who heard him talk assumed he was nervous and shy. That was untrue. He wanted to be completely sure of what he was saying and wasn’t most of the time, or the words tripped over each other like excited little puppies in their rush to get out of his mouth. Jack found it adorable.  
“Yeah, we can’t die gloriously if we drown ourselves,” Jackrum replied. “I’m surprised you’re banking on them having sense. Corporal Duran said at barracks assembly last week that they were ‘mad, Abominable dogs bent on tearing holy Borogravia to shreds between their rotting teeth.’”  
  
Willie laughed and took out the tent poles while Jack unfolded the canvas. “A-and the week before that, he said that we should be on our guard because they were vicious and wickedly cunning. I think we can trust the Zlobenians to be more consistent than Duran. I wonder, was he always so shouty like that? Or is there this magical transformation that happens with a promotion?”  
  
Well, this was as good a time as any to break the first part of the news he didn’t want to tell his lover. “Guess I’ll find out, as I’m up for one.”  
“It’s about time!” Willie exclaimed. “We need a better Corporal than Duran around. You’ll be great at it. Someone who can make Ike and Joe and Fitzy do even a lick of work won’t have any trouble with green Privates.”  
  
Jack flinched inwardly at this reference to his past, to their past, to when he lived with his three lazy brothers and his father. His father who yelled at him for not getting the never-ending chore list done, who cursed Nuggan for giving him a useless daughter, never mind the three big boys who were afflicted with nothing worse than chronic sloth. These facts made him question his decision sometimes; did he leave home to go find Willie, or did he leave to escape the prison of daily life on the farm?  
  
They got the tent set up and took out their bedrolls. The sun was rapidly setting. They had picked a spot far enough off the path that they wouldn’t be spotted, but they could see the track from a rise in the ground that conveniently hid their camp. Jack breathed a little sigh of relief as they got their boots off and crawled into the tent, rain peacefully drumming on the canvas over their warm, dry blankets. This relief only lasted for a moment; as he lay down beside his lover he remembered all the things he should have said. It was hard to remember to talk about things properly these days. In the few moments the two of them had in private, they were not very verbal.  
  
“Do you ever think about going back?” he asked, hoping that he could get enough cues to gauge what the reaction to his secret might be.  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“You know, going _back._ Maybe not home ‘cos I don’t want to live with my dad, but somewhere out in the countryside. Somewhere boring. And carrying on like we used to.”  
  
Willie rolled over. “I don’t want to go back. It’s funny. I didn’t want to leave in the first place, but now that I’m used to the Army, I want to see it through. The only thing I hated in the beginning was not having the p-prettiest girl in all of Borogravia by my side, and that problem’s all fixed now.” He smiled, and Jack remembered how they’d snuck out to meet in the woods behind his house. How he’d smuggled a tiny wedge of chocolate past the priests, and they’d fed it to each other in between kisses, savoring their little tastes of sin and Abomination. Jack’s heart ached with the weight of the things he had to tell him.  
  
“Willie, I love you and don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but what if you didn’t have a pretty girl by your side?” That statement didn’t make much sense. William interpreted it differently than he intended for him to.  
  
“W-we’ve been over this before. You’re _beautiful._ And b-big, but I like that. Everyone who’s ever told you otherwise doesn’t know what they’re missing.”  
  
Jack sighed. “Thank you, love, but I’ve made my peace with how I look. It’s not about that. It’s…” he paused, trying to think about how to explain it. And bracing himself for the words that might come after. _Freak. Abomination. Delusional cross-dresser._  
  
“I don’t think I can ever go back to wearing dresses again,” he said. “I didn’t like how it felt then, and it would feel wrong now.”  
  
“Then you don’t have to wear dresses again,” said Willie sensibly. “Nobody knows but us, and I like the way your legs look in trousers.”  
  
That sounded promising, but would he understand it? Jack tried again. “What if I told you,” he said in a shaking voice, “that I’d rather be called _handsome_ than beautiful?”  
  
There was a pause. Willie looked into his eyes, watched his lips tremble. Jack felt tears rolling down his cheeks in spite of himself. Willie reached over to him and grabbed his hand. “In that case, I’d be happy to call you handsome,” he said.  
  
“It’s just…” he choked, “that I’m not the girl you fell in love with that summer. I’m somebody else now. The farm girl you loved is gone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He was crying now. Willie maneuvered him into his arms.  
  
“Shh. I’ve got you. Yes, I loved _her,_ but I love you too.”  
  
“You...you don’t mind?”  
  
“No, I don’t. Maybe you’re not the girl I left behind anymore, but I e-expected that. People change and grow. I said I’d love you forever then. Now is part of forever. Even when we both get old and wrinkly and fat, I’ll still love you. Besides,” he took out his handkerchief and gave it to Jack, “since joining the Army I discovered I h-h-have”, he blushed, “a bit of a thing for m-men in uniform. If you’re an Abomination, then so am I.”  
  
Jack’s tears turned to laughter. “Good job for us that things turned out like this, then. It’s a good thing I enlisted when I did too, considering that.”  
  
“Yeah, if I let my eyes wander too far without thinking about you, I could have ended up shot like William Taylor in that song. You know, the one where the sailor is press-ganged, his girl dresses up and goes off to find him, sees that he’s taken up with another woman, and shoots them.” Jack did know that song. He couldn’t stand to think about the words anymore, but it had a good beat.  
  
“But you didn’t”, Jack replied. “And you’re a soldier, not a sailor. You’re more trustworthy than that.”  
  
Willie pulled him closer. “It was a silly song. I’d like to know what kind of navy gives sailors shirts with buttons that blow off in a stiff breeze.”  
  
“Or why that stupid girl didn’t put on a tight undershirt. If it wasn’t the shirt falling off, I wouldn’t have put it past the ballad-writers to make her garter fall down instead. Even though nobody wears garters anymore.”  
  
They were quietly thankful for real life, which was at once messier and nicer than anything portrayed in song or story. There was a tree root under Jack’s bedroll, the air was cold, and the rain still poured, but Willie’s warm, loving, body was a comfort Jack would trade all of the featherbeds in the world for. The last birds ended their songs, and the fatigue from the long march was beginning to set in. Normally, the two of them would take any chance they could get to have sex without fear of discovery, but tonight they were just too tired.  
  
“ ‘m gonna sleep now,” Willie murmured. He kissed him long and hard on the lips. “Goodnight, Jack. I love you.”  
  
“Love you too, Willie,” Jack whispered back. _Wherever we go, we’ll go together,_ Willie had said years ago as they lay together in a different forest, days before the burly men in the Cheesemonger’s reds dragged him away. Jack had no more illusions about forever, now that they’d been in a couple of battles, now that he’d seen the swords flash and the arrows fly. He knew that they would have adventures, but “forever” was only as long as fate and crossbow bolts gave them. They were soldiers, after all. But he felt good knowing he was safe and loved for all the time they had left.

**Author's Note:**

> "William Taylor" is an actual ballad, first published in 1792.


End file.
